Harrison, AR. – On June 6, 2024, a man from Harrison, Arkansas was sentenced to 55 years in prison without the possibility of parole on 2 counts of Sexually Exploiting a Minor via the production of Child Pornography.
According to documents, in July of 2023, a 5-year-old female told her mother that 32-year-old Aaron Micheal Ricketts had been sexually abusing her. The minor also disclosed that Ricketts had been taking nude pictures of her. After arresting him, the Boone County Sheriff’s Office went through his phone, which revealed multiple sexually explicit images and videos documenting the sexual abuse of the minor starting when she was only four years old. At sentencing, the United States presented evidence that showed Ricketts distributed the images of the minor on the internet and also solicited images of other minors in exchange.
This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, and the Harrison Police Department.
This case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
